Tebow Tops Global Sports Brand Index

Ten-week rise of the Global ‘Branded Individual’ Phenomenon

Austin, Texas January 14, 2012 – Tim Tebow, the reverent, knee-bending, soft-spoken quarterback of the Denver Broncos, has now claimed another milestone: Tebow now tops the Global Language Monitor‘s Sports Brand Affiliation Index (SBAI). The GLM SBAI tracks the top athletes in a variety of global athletic endeavors and measures the strength of their ‘brand affiliation’ to their particular sport.

The frenzy has only increased over the last week with Tebow’s dramatic touchdown pass on the first play of overtime to defeat the heavily favored (and defending conference champions) Pittsburgh Steelers.

“In the rankings, Tebow bested this week’s nemesis, Tom Brady, by a score of 100.00 to 38.96, and the defending Super Bowl winning quarterback, Aaron Rodgers of the Green Bay Packers, who scored 28.13 on the Sports BAI,” said Paul JJ Payack, president and Chief Word Analyst of GLM . “Perhaps more surprising, is that Tebow out-ranked fourteen champion athletes in more than a dozen global sports, among them the reigning champions of Formula 1, various Summer and Winter Olympic events, the National Basketball Association , Skiing, and Tennis.”

The Sports BAI is one of a number of Leading Brand Affiliated Indicators that GLM uses to measure the influence of ‘branded individuals’ in fields as varied as Entertainment, Politics, Celebrity, Royalty, and the retired-yet-still powerful. The highest rated ‘branded individuals’ across fields include Lady Gaga, Justin Bieber, and, of course, the former Kate Middleton.

GLM has previous noted that the rapid rise of ‘tebowing’ as an English language word closely resembling the rate of adoption of the word Obamamania in early 2008. The first mention of ‘tebowing’ can be traced to the dramatic overtime victory of the Denver Broncos football team over the Miami Dolphins on October 23, 2011, when Tebow ‘took a knee’ in a moment of prayerful reflection.

The Sports BAI is one of a number of Brand Affiliated Indexes that GLM uses to measure the influence of ‘branded individuals’ in fields as varied as Entertainment, Politics, Celebrity, Royalty, and the retired-yet-still powerful.

GLM consultants employ its NarrativeTracker technologies for brand-affiliated tracking, forecasting, and analysis. NarrativeTracker is based on global discourse, providing a real-time, accurate picture about any topic at any point in time. NarrativeTracker analyzes the Internet, blogosphere, the top 75,000 print and electronic global media, as well as new media sources, as they emerge.